Read in 2018

With just a few hours left in 2018, it's unlikely I'll finish another book. So here is the list of 35 books read this year:

Padre Pio: The True Story by C. Bernard Ruffin
The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton
Christmas with Norman Rockwell by John Kirk
The Pilgrim of Hate by Ellis Peters
Four Hundred and Two Snails - Haiku Society of America 2018 Anthology
An Actor Bows by Kevin O'Brien
Brother Cadfael's Penance by Ellis Peters
The Hermit of Eyton Forest by Ellis Peters
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
New Selected Poems of Stevie Smith
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
The Llama Who Had No Pajama (poetry) by Mary Ann Hoberman
Ghastlies, Goops & Pincushions by X. J. Kennedy
It's Halloween (poetry) by Jack Prelusky
Blackberry Ink (poetry) by Eve Merriam
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
How to Become a Perfect Christian by The Babylon Bee
The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus by Adam C. English
Joan of Arc by Mark Twain
The Lessons of St.Francis: How To Bring Simplicity and Spirituality Into Your Daily Life by John Michael Talbot with Steve Rabey
The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White
The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly
St. Benedict: The Story of the Father of the Western Monks by May Fabyan Windeatt
St. Thomas More of London by Elizabeth M. Ince
The Paradiso by Dante Alighieri (Ciardi translation)
Seeds of the Word: Finding God in the Culture by Father (later Bishop) Robert Barron
My Sisters The Saints by Colleen Carroll Campbell
Masaoka Shiki: Selected Poems Translated by Burton Watson
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters by Annie Dillard
the sun and her flowers by Rupi Kaur
To Light A Fire On The Earth: Proclaiming The Gospel In A Secular Age by Bishop Robert Barron (with John Allen, Jr.)
The Aeneid For Boys and Girls by Alfred J. Church
Black Ships Before Troy by Rosemary Sutcliff
King Lear by William Shakespeare

It was  typical year.

A number of books for school -  The Sword in the Stone, The Trumpeter of Krakow, The Aeneid For Boys and Girls, Black Ships Before Troy, and so on.

There are the Franciscan books or spiritual related books: To Light A Fire On The Earth: Proclaiming The Gospel In A Secular Age, The Lessons of St.Francis: How To Bring Simplicity and Spirituality Into Your Daily Life, Padre Pio: The True Story, My Sisters The Saints, and so on. 

And the poetry - child and adult: Blackberry Ink,  The Llama Who Had No Pajama,  Masaoka Shiki: Selected Poems, Four Hundred and Two Snails, New Selected Poems of Stevie Smith, etc. 

Some mysteries for fun: The Pilgrim of Hate, Brother Cadfael's Penance, and The Hermit of Eyton Forest. 

The Classics (some of which I had read before, but a long time ago): King Lear, The Screwtape Letters, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Paradiso, Joan of Arc, Wise Blood, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, and more.

The list includes some book I really enjoyed, such as Seeds of the Word: Finding God in the Culture, My Sisters The Saints, and, my favorite book of the year, Joan of Arc.

There were a few books I read because I had to (for school) or thought I needed to, but which I did not really enjoy. My biggest disappointment was the sun and her flowers - a book others touted that I found really weak and uninteresting.

I'm already starting a Christmas gift book - a biography of Mr. Rogers - and will be looking forward to reading a variety of poetry, classics, mysteries, and spiritual books in 2019.

Pax et bonum

Is It Ever Okay for a Christian to Judge Someone? | ChurchPOP

Is It Ever Okay for a Christian to Judge Someone? | ChurchPOP: Answering one of the most common objections...

Pax et bonum

Christmas-related poems

I added a few Christmas-related poems this year:

Santa’s dilemma:

Follow his doctor’s orders,
Or eat those cookies

Millennial home

Lactose and gluten free treats –
Santa leaves some coal

God so loved the world
that He sent His only Son
snow gently falling

I've written a number of Christmas-related poems over the years. Sometimes they are in response to other's poems or for a particular purpose - such as this one a couple of years ago for a science fiction site:

supernova -
on some planet are wise men
following its light?

I also wrote one to share with my fellow mall Santas:

A Mall Santa's Prayer

As I hold each precious child
let me treat each one
with the love and care I'd show
Your most holy Son.

And then there was the bad poetry contest I entered (and won!) a number of years ago:

Birthday shotgun

Clem’s birthday shotgun
provided the Christmas feast –
Rudolph’s final flight

Fruitcake

Aunt Ann’s old fruitcake
arrived for Christmas again
(no, not Uncle Ed)

Scurry Christmas

over the river
and through the woods we scurry –
in-laws still find us                                                            15

What’s the poop?

Next year, Santa, please
along with your reindeer bring
a pooper scooper

Stale Cookies

finding stale cookies
Santa raids the cheapskate’s fridge –
ah, a pecan pie

Sleep?

folks in their beds with
visions of credit card bills
dancing in their heads

Gingerbread cookies

half-eaten cookie
clutched in Santa’s stiff fingers –
wicked witch cackles

Ned makes the naughty list

prone beneath the tree
an unconscious Santa Claus –
Ned’s booby trap worked

Beep … beep

Christmas morning Mass –
during Father’s homily
beeps from new game boys

Practical joke

practical joke with
Ex Lax explains why reindeer’s
nickname was “Dumper”

 

Most were written for Christmas cards or social media greetings:

 

Though Santa gives so many gifts
he’ll always be outdone.

He gives clothes and toys and such,
but the Father gave His Son.

 

A slug among weeds

is not afraid to wish you

a Merry Christmas

 

At Nicea St. Nicholas

slapped that naughty Arius.

Now for those with vices

the naughty list suffices.

 

With ox and ass and manger and hay
St. Francis recalled that holy day.
And before that Greccio scene was done
The Father again provided his Son.

Holy Child of light
illuminating with hope hearts
in these darkest days

Christmas Eve walk
studying the stars above -
maybe one of these?

Through the clouds

a solitary star shines –

Christmas Eve

After sunrise

One star still visible –

Christmas Day

 

After Epiphany Santa Claus

will take a pause.

But believers have no need to fear:

He'll be back next year.

 

Oh, to have been a shepherd or a king
and to have heard those angels sing
or to have seen that star so bright
upon that holy Christmas night.

But Christmas transcends both time and place
and we can share in that night’s grace
when like those humble ones back then
we heed God’s call and proclaim, “Amen.”

I'll just keep scribbling away.

 

Merry Christmas! 

 

Pax et bonum

Part of the Secular Franciscan Profession Ritual

Candidate:

I, N.N.

by the grace of God,

renew my baptismal promises

and consecrate myself to the service of his Kingdom.

Therefore, in my secular state

I promise to live

all the days of my life

the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ

in the Secular Franciscan Order

by observing its rule of life.

May the grace of the Holy Spirit,

the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary

and our holy father St. Francis,

and the fraternal bonds of community

always be my help,

so that I may reach the goal

of perfect Christian love. Pax et bonum

Yikes!

Fake News, 2018 edition.

https://dailycaller.com/2018/12/22/worst-fake-news-stories-cnn-nbc-2018/

Pax et bonum

I'll never go to Alaska

 

I have no desire ever to go to Alaska - not even with the temptation of getting a glimpse of Russia.

I joke - but grimly do so - that I might not survive the trip there. Alaska claimed one member of my family, and nearly claimed another.

My younger (and only) brother moved there in the 1970s to work on building the oil pipeline. He learned to be a welder, and made a lot of money. He kept trying to get me to join him up there, but I was not prepared to drop out of college.

When work on the pipeline ceased, he, used to making - and spending - lots of money - got involved with risky behaviors and ran afoul of the law. He got caught, but did not face jail time because he turned state's evidence in one case.

He struggled for a while afterwards as he tried repeatedly to clean up his act. We wrote back and forth, and he even returned briefly a couple of times, including one long visit when he needed some surgery. He kept talking about going straight. His last visit was at Christmas, 1982. He was clearly troubled. I tried to advise him. We talked about faith. We talked about his many talents and gifts. We talked about the future. I urged him to return home permanently. He said he'd think about it, but that he had some things he needed to clear up, and he had a girlfriend he did to want to simply desert. He went back. We spoke again by phone a couple of months later. He said he was optimistic that everything was going to work out. 

That was the last time we spoke.

In May of 1983, he reportedly left his apartment with a substantial amount of cash, telling his girlfriend he had to meet someone.

He never returned. His car was found several days later parked in a University of Alaska parking lot.

We got word shortly thereafter that he was missing. My father contacted Alaskan police, but got nothing. He even contacted our Congressman and the FBI and tried to get them to get involved. No luck.

Finally, he flew up to Alaska. He began digging around and started hearing that my brother had apparently gotten the wrong people angry, and that he had been set up, murdered, and his body dumped somewhere in the back country. My dad went to the police with what he had found, but they did not seem very interested in actively pursuing it. When he came back he told me that one officer told him unofficially that my brother's case was not a priority, and that the attitude was simply "scum kill scum."

Dad continued to dig and got some names. He went to see those people, but when he approached one place he was shot at. He had to run. He thought the police would do nothing, and that if he stayed longer than he'd planned he might end up dead.

Dad also discovered that my brother's friends had basically looted my brother's possessions, taking cash and anything that was valuable - including, apparently, a major portion of a substantial coin collection he'd amassed and about which we'd talked (I also collected coins, but not to the extent that my brother did). Dad gathered up what was left of my brother's possessions (I currently have what's left of his coin collection), and shipped it all to New York.

Among the things that he collected were some of my brother's clothes. My mother mourned by washing them all, and carefully putting them away. When we were cleaning out the house after mom died we found those items careful folded and stored in boxes.

My brother was eventually declared dead, though no body was ever located or identified. I gave a DNA sample for matching should any remains ever be found.

This year marks the 35th year since he left us. Mom and Dad are now dead, so I am all that is left.

I keep wondering if some day I'll get a letter from Alaska declaring they had found something.

I have a fantasy that some day there's will be a knock at the door and he'll be standing there explaining he'd been in hiding all this time.

But that is a fantasy.

I still have the hat he gave me that last Christmas. I use his nickname as one of my passwords. There's a picture of him on the wall. I have refused to part with what's left of his coin collection.

I've been thinking about family a lot this Christmas, and he's been on my mind. I miss him.

As for going to Alaska, even if Alaskan officials ever find something, I won't go up there.

The only part of me that will visit Alaska is my DNA sample.

Pax et bonum

Birth Control - Prostitution of Marriage

Prostitution of Marriage

Birth control
is not self-control.
What is not self-control
is self-indulgence.
What is self-indulgence
is prostitution of functions.
Prostitution in marriage
is prostitution of marriage.
Prostitution of marriage
is prostitution plus hypocrisy.

- Peter Maurin (cofounder of The Catholic Worker Movement)

Pax et bonum

Jesus! I know Him!

 

 

Pax et bonum

Santa 2018

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Pax et bonum

Santa's Dilemma

Santa’s dilemma:

Follow his doctor’s orders,

Or eat those cookies.

Pax et bonum

Beto leads a Presidential poll?

According to a recent poll, Beto O'Rourke is the leading contender for the Democratic Party's Presidential nomination in 2020. Who knows if he will even be on the radar a year from now?

But maybe he just might play to that party's base ...

Pax et bonum

St. Francis at Greccio

With ox and ass and manger and hay
St. Francis recalled that holy day.
And before that Greccio scene was done
The Father again provided His Son.

Pax et bonum

Robert F. Kennedy - Day of Affirmation Speech [A Tiny Ripple of Hope]

He was one of the heroes of my youth. His campaign for President in 1968 was the first political campaign in which I took an interest - and his shooting the day after my 13th birthday is the moment I mark as the end of my childhood.




Pax et bonum

Ancestry led me astray!

Four years ago I did one of those Ancestry DNA tests.

The results that came back were:

Ireland - 56 %
Scandinavia - 16 %
Great Britain - 10 %
Iberian Peninsula - 8 %
Western Europe - 5 %
A few odd traces - 3 %

Then Irish was no surprise - but the Scandinavian (which I described as "Viking") and the Iberian (Hispanic) were. I was pleased. It was kind of neat being a Viking and partly Hispanic.

But today I received an unexpected (and unasked-for) e-mail from Ancestry announcing that they had refined and updated my results.

Ireland is now Ireland/Scotland/Wales, and that increased slightly to 58 %.
Scandinavia is now Sweden, and dropped to just 4 %.
Great Britain suddenly jumped from 10 % to 36 %.
Iberian Peninsula went from 8 % to 0.
Western Europe is now Germanic Europe, and dropped from 5 % to 2 %.
The odd traces are no longer  there.

No longer Hispanic. And Viking is still there, but at a much reduced level.

Bummer. I liked the odd mix of the first results.

And how could something jump from 10 % to 36 %?? How could one listing that was 8 % simply disappear?

Moreover, this sudden change has me wondering how accurate this new one is. Will I get another e-mail down the road with radically different results? Will I suddenly find out I'm part Bulgarian? Or Swiss? Or Sardinian?

I need a glass of sack.

But maybe I'll just settle for some mead. Or a stout.

Pax et bonum